A 9,500-year-old human-cat burial at Shillourokambos, Cyprus

Excavating the Neolithic village of Shillourokambos on Cyprus, Vigne and colleagues uncovered a complete cat skeleton deliberately buried within centimetres of a human grave, the two interred together about 9,500 years ago. Because Cyprus has no native felids, the animal must have been carried by boat from the mainland, implying people were already keeping cats well before the Egyptian period traditionally credited with domestication. The careful, symmetrical placement of cat and human signals an emotional or symbolic bond rather than mere pest control. The find pushed the archaeological record of human-cat association back several millennia and reframed domestication as a Near Eastern Neolithic process tied to early farming villages, where grain stores drew rodents and rodents drew wildcats into the human niche.